Augmented reality (AR) toys have been introduced. The basic hardware required, an AR device, is a smartphone, laptop, tablet computer, dedicated device, or the like, that views the real world with a camera, and displays that view on a display to an user. Additionally, the AR device runs software that recognizes certain objects (herein termed “anchors”) in the camera's field of view, including the anchor's apparent distance and orientation relative to the camera, and then augments the image from the camera with computer generated graphics that seem to appear in, on, or near the anchor. The resulting modified image is displayed to the user (often, a game player, in which case, the AR device may also be executing game code).
An example of such toys include a line of jigsaw puzzles, by Ravensburger AG of Ravensburg, Germany which when viewed with the corresponding AR app on an smartphone or tables replaces a portion of the puzzle with animated figures. Another one is called “AR Games” by Nintendo Co., Ltd. of Kyoto, Japan, which provides preprinted paper cards as anchors and plays on their Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming system. The Eclipse AR Card Game by MoOn-Studio of also uses preprinted cards as anchors, and allows two players to interact by manipulating the cards, however the two players share a single camera and display attached to a personal computer provides the same view to both players.